Are we, then, a trigger-happy society? Do we administer death even when death does not need to be administered? When I say, "we," I am speaking to most all of us, for I find that most all of us hold what I consider dangerous values on this issue.
Yes, I wonder if many of us -- perhaps even most -- do advocate pulling the trigger every time someone breaks into our home. Is that dangerous? I think it is.When we verbally agree that death should be administered, we contribute to the atmosphere that brings about it happening. We foster murder being committed even when murder is not necessary.
Would you be careful with your words, not to say something that would encourage another person to do something that he shouldn't? If he were thinking of robbing a bank, would you tell him that certainly seems to be just the right thing he should do?
Murder is a grave thing. Just as we would not encourage a bank robber, we should also guard our words not to encourage death where death does not need to be administered. Yes, there are times when killing someone is the right thing to do, but we should not want to drag into and include in our utterances those times that death is not the right thing.
So, we should consider carefully on whether there are times we should not administer death, that we guard what we say so we do not utter agreement where we would not want to.
Gunning someone dead should not be a cure-all. Killing should not be the default option. Not every time someone enters our home uninvited should we gun them down. Death to another does not and should not cover every situation. Not every time we are frightened should we fire blindly into the night. Not always should we administered death when we don't know what lies in front of us. Sometimes, maybe, but not always.
So, when someone says, "If someone breaks into my home, I'm going to shoot first and ask questions later," do we agree with them, and thus encourage that thinking? I think that if I had a chance to ask questions, I would certainly want to. Rather than murdering someone unnecessarily, I would want to find out anything I could to keep me from killing without just cause.
Take the situation in Pleasant Grove a week ago. About 5:40 in the morning, a man pounded on a homeowner's door. Getting no answer, he crawled up to the balcony on the second floor, where there was also a door. He was drunk, and thinking he was at his own home, which was buildings away and looked just the same. (His roommates later would say they had told him, if he ever got locked out to crawl up to the balcony and use that door.)
So, the homeowner opened the balcony door enough to talk to the man, but the man rushed right in. The homeowner fired, killing the intruder.
What should he have done? I would say he should have backed away, gun still in the ready, and asked questions. You don't just shoot a man dead when you have no reason to know why he is entering. The intruder did not have a weapon and was not saying anything threatening. Had the homeowner given the man but a chance to look at the surroundings, he shortly would have realized he was in the wrong home. Instead, the shoot-first-ask-questions-later scenario played out, for I understand there was little or no conversation before the homeowner blew the intruder away.
Let me ask, if you and your wife were walking down the street, and a person approached who had ill feelings toward you, and you knew he carried a gun and was capable of killing you, and he leered at your wife and then gave a mean, threatening glance back at you, would you be justified in pulling out your own weapon and blowing him away?
Of course not.
The homeowner had no greater reason for fear. If we are to say he was justified, we must also say you would be justified for firing on the person on the streets.
Fears can be taken too far. They can quickly become irrational. If we say the homeowner was justified, are we saying he was right in supposing the intruder might rush up and rape his wife? Are we saying there was there reason to think the intruder was going to strangle him?
I think if we believe that, we stretch for reason to justify murder. We play a dangerous game that could lead to us becoming murderers.
Nevertheless, isn't this what we teach each other? We say that if someone breaks into our home, we should shoot them dead. The homeowner did but what we, as a society, taught him. So it is, we should reconsider very carefully what we are teaching each other, lest we in some small way bear the burden of fault for the death of another person. Let us not be part of a teaching that fosters killing without good reason, for what we sow, so shall we reap. If we teach that if someone breaks into our home, we should always shoot them, sooner or later there is going to be a situation like there was in Pleasant Grove, where the homeowner shot the intruder dead.
If we are teach that we always shoot them, we are teaching a one-size-fits-all dangerous thing. We are teaching that guns are a cure-all when, in fact, they aren't and shouldn't be. There are times when, if someone breaks into our home, we should shoot them. Yes, we are there to protect our wives, and our daughters and our sons. But, there are also times when killing is the wrong thing. We, as a society, should know the difference, and be ready to verbalize it in our conversations with each other.
Right now, what we verbalize is death and death only. Ours is a trigger-happy society, and if we agree with someone when they say they will kill anyone who breaks into their home, we are among those who are trigger happy, for if we kill them all, we kill some who shouldn't be killed.
With murder being as great of a wrong and as great of a sin as it is, we should want no part of it.
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